Late September Free Training from PASS VCs
The DBA and Virtualization Virtual Chapters hope that last weeks 24 Hours of PASS got you in the mood for more free training. Here's what they have on tap for you this week:
NoSQL Is Not Everywhere
NoSQL has been getting a lot of press in the last year, but it's not necessarily the best platform or solution for you. Steve Jones comments on NoSQL and alternative platforms.
SQL Profiler Through StreamInsight Sample Solution
In this postI show how you can use StreamInsight to take events coming from SQL Server Profiler in real-time and do some analytics whilst the data is in flight. Here is the solution for that post. The download contains Project that reads events from a previously recorded trace file Project that starts a trace and captures events in real-time from a custom trace definition file (Included) It is a very simple solution and could be extended.
Big Data and SQL
Today Steve Jones talks about how some companies find efficiencies by training employees to use SQL. Perhaps that's a good idea for all developers.
Changing Server Collation on SQL Server 2008
In this article, learn about the risks of changing server collation as well as how to go about making this change.
The Cloud is Nothing Special
This week Steve talks about cloud computing, and the fact that a lot of what the cloud does is no big deal. But it can be helpful to IT professionals.
TSQL Challenge 39 - Calculate Gross Profit by Item using FIFO method
This challenge is related to an inventory management application where your job is to calculate the profitability by item (cost v/s sales) using First-In-First-Out (FIFO) processing method.
Identify database features restricted to a specific edition of SQL Server 2008
Ever wanted to know how he can identify whether a database uses any of the features that are restricted to a specific edition of SQL Server 2008. In this tip we will go through the steps a DBA needs to follow to identify a database which uses edition specific features.
Minesweeper in T-SQL
Whatever happened to the idea that programming in TSQL can be fun? A Simple-Talk reader contributes an article to remind us all that there is more to TSQL than wrestling with DMVs and pummelling recalcitrant correlated subqueries.
The MERGE Statement in SQL Server 2008
When the SQL MERGE statement was introduced in SQL Server 2008, it allowed database programmers to replace reams of messy code with something quick, simple and maintainable. The MERGE syntax just takes a bit of explaining, and Rob Sheldon is, as always, on hand to explain with plenty of examples.
Blogs
Houston AI-Lytics 2026–Powerpoint Slides
By Steve Jones
Thanks to everyone for attending my session on running a Local LLM. If you...
The Book of Redgate: Do the Right Things
By Steve Jones
I do believe that Redgate has been very customer focused since it’s inception. I’ve...
GenAI vs Dashboards: Not the Same (And Never Will Be)
By James Serra
There’s a question I’ve been hearing more and more lately, especially as Copilot, Fabric,...
Forums
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: JSON_ARRAYAGG
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
Spring Connections and Learning at PASS On Tour
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Spring Connections and Learning at...
Multiple Sequence Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Sequence Values
Question of the Day
Multiple Sequence Values
How do I easily get the next 12 sequence values from a sequence object?
See possible answers